Here’s a GI Classic interview of Bob Taylor published Feb. 27, 2006.
By: Joerg Kliewe
Bob Taylor Photo: Joerg Kliewe
When Bob Taylor, co-founder of Taylor Guitars and inveterate woodworker and tinkerer, can’t be found at the Taylor Guitars building in El Cajon, California, he’s most likely at home in his 2,500 square-foot woodworking shop doing what he does best: building guitars.
Taylor’s love affair with guitars began before he was a teenager, though after sawing off the neck of an electric he realized there were a few gaps in his understanding of guitar construction. Those gaps were soon filled. He successfully built his first guitar, a twelve-string, when a freshman in high school and then two more before he graduated.
A few years later, Taylor met Kurt Listug and Steve Schemmer while working as an apprentice guitar builder for the American Dream guitar building shop in Lemon Grove, California. The three joined forces and established what was initially called the Westland Music Company on October 15, 1974. By early 1976, the name was changed to Taylor Guitars.
The company survived the rigors of start-up entrepreneurship, including having to twice lay off all but the principals in order to survive various business challenges. But, with Taylor’s focus on process improvement and innovation, Taylor eventually found its place in the pantheon of great American guitar companies.
Using a Guild D-37 as the guinea pig, Bob Taylor’s “no fear” approach to new ideas brought him to the conclusion that bolt-on necks for acoustic guitars was not only do-able, it could be done efficiently and in an environmentally responsible way.
Taylor Guitars moved forward with the New Technology (NT) bolt-on neck system and the use of CNC machines to push production while maintaining consistently high quality. Innovations such as the use of ultraviolet light to dry guitar finishes, which saves weeks of production time, and the company’s recent introduction of the Expression System (ES) pickup electronics, which produces more satisfying and balanced tones, are but two examples of the elements that have contributed to the success of Taylor Guitars.
Growing a company from a trio of partners to over 400 employees, while building a reputation as one of the best guitar companies in the world, takes business savvy, a talent for outstanding craftsmanship, and a focus on how emerging technologies can be applied to traditional forms. Bob Taylor (President), Kurt Listug (CEO) and their team have earned the reputation they’ve built.
Taylor’s troop of acoustic guitars won MMR magazine’s 2005 Dealer’s Choice Award for Acoustic Guitar Line of the Year and both the T5 and the GS series were recognized at the 2006 Winter NAMM Show, with the T5 earning 2005 Product of the Year and Best New Electric Guitar of 2005 and the GS winning Music Inc. magazine’s Best in Show award.
Guitar International dropped by Bob’s office in El Cajon to talk about the Limited Edition models, the T5, and get a glimpse of the team’s prototypes. He offered us some exclusive photos of the Limited Editions that will be displayed for the first time at the 2006 Summer NAMM Show in Austin, Texas, later this week. He let us know that his team was still finalizing touches on the Fall Limited’s so that some of the Limiteds pictured in the interview below may be early prototypes and subject to change before their official release.
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Joerg Kliewe: Will Taylor Guitars unveil any new guitars at the 2006 Summer NAMM Show?
Bob Taylor: Well, we like to launch big products, like fundamental products, in January [the Winter NAMM Show], so for mid-year stuff, we usually show our Fall Limited’s.
The Fall Limited story goes back maybe fifteen years to when we had a small dealer network. Usually, throughout the year I would buy some type of wood or some cool inlay or something that would make a special guitar. We’d find our best dealers and say, “Hey, here’s an added-value guitar, because you guys have been great dealers. Here’s something that’s really neat that you can have some fun with, that one of your favorite customers might come in and buy.”
We’d offer some wood upgrade and a combination of inlay, binding, electronics, finish or whatever. Every year it changed and it became a popular program.
It’s almost like the Fall Limited has become a brand, or sub-brand and people are always waiting for Fall Limited’s. We now have the task to think up something that’s fresh and a little bit unique. Sometimes we’ll do something similar to what we did the year before because a feature was so popular.
This year we decided that we’d make a few less guitars. I think we had 1,500 guitars planned. But, that was too few. It’s just not enough guitars, as we learned by testing the waters with dealers in the U.S. So, we really need something more like 2,000 guitars as a minimum for the Limited’s.
And we’re doing it with four models this year. They all have a theme. And we like to go across the whole price range so buyers from different price abilities can find something they like. You’ll see that these are very beautiful.
Joerg: What’s in the Taylor lineup for the 2006 Fall Limited’s?
Bob Taylor: The first model, the 400 Series, is very simple. It’s a guitar with a walnut back and sides with maple binding and it has a three piece back. We call it a “narrow wedge”. We’ve done this before, a few years back.
You know how three-piece backs have a big wedge piece? Well, we put just a very narrow decorative edge at one end and only maybe one-inch of maple on the other that matches the binding. We’re making that in the 410E, which is not a cutaway. A few of the Limited’s are cutaways, but not the 410 or 414.
The other three Series are cutaways. The 710 and the 714 are next, with East Indian rosewood and Engelmann spruce. These have the same body woods. Both the 14 and 10, the dreadnought and grand concert, are Engelmann spruce and East Indian rosewood and they have the exact same maple binding treatment and wedge treatment as the walnut guitar.
Then we move to the 800 Series that’s usually an Eastern Indian rosewood guitar with white plastic binding. It’s that standard white-binding rosewood dreadnought guitar. Here, however, the rosewood is Madagascar that a lot of makers are trying to develop the supply for now. I tried developing the supply twenty years ago but it just wasn’t ready.
It comes from Madagascar and it’s a very Brazilian rosewood-like timber. You’re seeing a lot of classical and custom builders using this wood. Some of this is virtually indistinguishable from Brazilian. It’s the same look, like the old-style Brazilian that we use to see that’s more of the brown and tan colors. Very, very beautiful. So we’re making a whole series of those in Madagascar wood.
Joerg: What production quantities are you considering for the Limited’s?
Bob Taylor: I think we’re making about 500 of the 800, 500 of the 700, and 500 of the others. And then we’re going to the 900 Series. Again, they’ll have the same maple binding. We’ve re-released the “Cindy” binding that was a pattern on the 900 Series years ago. Those are going to be cocobolo wood.
So what you have is walnut, East Indian rosewood, Madagascar and cocobolo guitars from the 4s to the 9s and all trimmed in this maple binding that really looks quite beautiful.
That’s what we have for the Fall Limited’s this year. A real nice little selection. We make 60,000 or 65,000 guitars each year so for us a limited edition, a selection of 3,000, 4,000 or even 5,000 guitars, isn’t that many. But with these, we’re trying to pare that down to make this a much, much more limited number.
Joerg: Did you consider including a special T5 as a Fall Limited?
Bob Taylor: Yes we did. We considered it, but in the end we feel that the T5 is still too new. When you’re on the journalistic end of things or the product development end of things it’s always, “What’s new? What’s new? What’s new?” Well, actually, the T5 is new.
It’s just barely starting. After one-and-a-half years, stores finally go, “T5? What’s that? Oh, yeah!” I mean, we sold 10,000 of them last year. When you introduce a new product you have this early adoption phase with consumers who are in the know. They read your magazine or see your website and they know something new is coming and they go out and buy it. They’re the first one on the block to buy the guitar.
Then, after that, it’s the rest of the world that makes something sell for twenty or thirty years. It’s the early adopters, the people who are on the cutting edge, that make something sell for the first ten months and then they’re done. And so, in reality, what we have to remember is that we need to continue to market a new model. In the guitar world, anytime we birth a guitar, unless it’s limited, we want to sell that guitar for five, ten, twenty, thirty years.
So in reality, while the T5 is already two or three products behind what we’re working on now, this is the year that the real work starts with the T5. This is the year that it is a new guitar to those people who aren’t reading, to those people who just go to a retail store because they want to buy a new guitar.
Joerg: I see you’ve added new tops to the T5.
Bob Taylor: We added new colors and we made top upgrades with maple and koa. Those have gone really quite well. People love the most premium wood they can get, and so they say, “If I can spend $2,500 for a guitar, but for five hundred dollars more I can get a really, really premium piece of wood, that’s the way I want to go.” It’s like the PRS 10-top idea, people go for that.
And then we added four colors because a lot of electric players are buying T5s. But basically, people like nice wood, sunburst, things that show wood more than paint. Especially for guitars that cost more money. Colors are good for guitars that cost a thousand or fifteen hundred dollars, but once you get into a higher price range people will never stop loving wood.
Joerg: Based on your knowledge of the buying life-cycle, from early adopters to regular buyers, you must have revisited your marketing strategies.
Bob Taylor: We have to keep reminding ourselves that we have to support the thing we started two years ago. We find that it takes almost three years in the guitar industry for the world to know that you came out with something new.
It’s that top ten or fifteen percent of buyers that are there on the day you launch it. You say it’s going to be available in the stores in April and they’re in the stores in April because they want to see that new thing. But, they are just a small fraction of that real powerhouse of buyers out there. Quite interesting.
We didn’t really realize that until relatively recently, in the last five or six years, as we released more new products because the general thinking used to be that guitars don’t change that much. But, now that we’ve released a lot of new guitars, people expect that every six months there’ll be a new model.
Joerg: By pushing the Taylor GS line, do you think you’re in competition with your T5s?
Bob Taylor: Yes, especially competition for buyers. And there’s a bigger competition for marketing dollars and attention. Not only for us, but for publishers and retailers as well. The market’s just now really learning about the T5.
See, for a lot of retailers what happens is the early adopters wait for the new model then come in and buy it. The retailers may not even have to work to make the sale, they put the guitar in stock and people run in and buy it. We see that all over the world.
So the dealer, who’s a busy guy with a thousand different products in his store, may not have even had time to pay any attention to this new model from Taylor Guitars before they’re all gone. By the time he gets them in again, that early little-or-no-effort phase of the selling cycle may have ended. Only then does he learn about the model because now he has to educate potential buyers in order to make the sale.
So, yes, at the moment the GS and T5 might be in competition. However, the GS is now enjoying that early market phase where people who are informed buy them and, in fact, a lot of them might be teaching dealers what the guitar’s about. That’s the state of retail these days. That’s kind of how it works.
Joerg: Do the ideas for new guitars or features come from you or do you have a group of creative types who do that?
Bob Taylor: We have a creative team. As a matter of fact, I’m not sure which way you drove up, but there are two brand new buildings being constructed and one of those is our future design center that we’ll finish in the fall, maybe October [2006].
Our design team has grown from being only me to maybe only me and Larry Breedlove. And then David Hosler the brains behind the ES system and the driving force with the T5. But what’s happened is this team now encompasses electronics design, designers and engineers who have to design all the components of the guitar.
For example, if we need a battery housing or knobs or a new bridge then they’ll be working independently. Then there’s the tooling staff that needs to build the tools. Then there are the guitar designers like myself, Larry Breedlove and Ed Granaro. So this team is maybe 15 people now. It’s grown quite big.
Joerg: How many new concepts do you work on at any given time?
Bob Taylor: We have years-worth of products in mind and sometimes we get very excited about one of them and we work on its design, but then we get to a point where we have to make practical decisions on what to release next. That’s what happened with the GS.
The T5 was very successful so the product development team had inertia and they were working on the, “What’s the next model in the T5 line?”, thinking possibly one that’s more electric – all kinds of ideas, such as different bridges and different pickups. They were working on that last year when I said, “No, we really might need to make a new acoustic guitar and I have a great idea for one.”
So, we all just refocused and worked on the acoustic. When it’s strictly an acoustic the lion share comes from me. When it’s electronic, then it’s more of a broader team and David Hosler would be the wellspring for that guitar.
Joerg: Are you often approached by artists for something new?
Bob Taylor: It’s a curious situation. When I first started building guitars, I always imagined it would be artists, especially the famous artists, saying, “This is what I want. Build me this.”
But after thirty-two years I find that they’re not asking for something that they want. In fact, they’re really looking for help, for us to take it to the next level. Most artists are engaged in the business of managing their own success so they may not be dreaming of a new guitar.
I see it as a whole eco-system and we all have a role to play. I feel that the role of Taylor Guitars is to advance the guitar itself and it’s up to the artist to play it and beta test it. We do get comments from some artists in the early stages of development, when we’re in the prototype stages. They might say it’s really great or they might tell us the things that don’t work so well and we’ll make adjustments accordingly.
Joerg: What about the Taylor Ritchie Sambora double-neck?
Bob Taylor: That certainly was a request from Ritchie Sambora. We’d had a pretty good relationship. He’s moving through guitar companies right now. He’s done a lot of Fender stuff, he’s doing some Gibson things and it looks like he’s doing something with Martin.
But during the time he was doing things with Taylor there was a six-string guitar he thought would be neat. But, he said, “When I play this thing, it makes me think I would really like a Taylor that’s a double-neck.”
We thought, “Oh my God, we don’t want to do that!” because it’s a huge project. We actually made two double-neck guitars totally by hand, but we never made it available to the public. We’re more likely to get engaged when a guitar will eventually become a model that we can sell, not a one-off custom guitar that someone plays. While it’s not worthwhile to do from a business standpoint, a lot of times it’s a fun diversion.
Joerg: Do you have any signature guitars being planned?
Bob Taylor: No signature guitars being planned. No signature models going on right now. But, I’ll give you an example of someone who wanted something different. Prince played the T5. Absolutely fell in love with it. I don’t know if you’ve ever seen him in person. He’s a very small man and doesn’t weigh very much so a T5 is just too big a guitar for him. He said he wanted a T5, but he wanted one smaller. We thought, “We’ll do that!” He’s Prince!
So, we made a T5 with the same fret scale and the same tone, but we made the guitar smaller and he loved it! He played it in videos and his guitar tech calls and says he’s playing it worldwide and it’s become a main guitar for him because he gets the tones he wants from it. So, those things do happen, but they tend to happen more behind the scenes.
Joerg: As busy as you are with the business side of guitars, do you find time to play?
Bob Taylor: Yes, although it’s funny because you’re a photographer. I’ve taken up landscape photography. I’ve kind of moved my creative interests. I just got back from a one-month expedition in the Sahara. I have a friend who’s a publisher in Munich. We both bought Land Cruisers. I brought my daughter and we drove through there and part of what I love doing is photographing.
But, yes, I still play music. Most of my music career has taken place in the church. It still mostly takes place in church. In the States, music is alive and there’s a huge opportunity to play music in the church. I’ve done that for twenty years and I’ve played with a lot of great musicians. It gives you a chance to practice and play in front of people. It’s really quite exciting.
Joerg: Are the guitars here in your office your personal guitars?
Bob Taylor: They’re mostly prototypes [see photo number three above] and things that we’re checking on in a particular guitar, like an iteration of a battery. One has new color shading and one is my own personal Liberty Tree I keep around to play. These are all prototypes. They’re always lying around and there’s always a flow of them coming through. We’re constantly tweaking them with the team. It’s fun.
